Press Release- VAMBAM- Violence Against Men And Boys Awareness Month – Oct 2015

PRESS RELEASE- #VAMBAM
 ALL INDIA MEN’S WELFARE ASSOCIATION
HELPLINE FOR MEN & BOYS IN DISTRESS: 888 2 498 498

 

There is a very visible absence of any protection, support system or forums to look into the many aspects of the well being of males. This absence of any framework to address men’s issues has encouraged violence by women against men and boys. All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA) was formed on 11 October 2009 to create awareness about  the many issues faced by men and boys and to promote men’s welfare.


VAMBAM: Today on the eve of the 6th anniversary of its conception, AIMWA has launched a month long campaign to bring into focus the issue of Violence against Men and Boys. From October 1 to October 31 we will be observing “Violence Against Men and Boys Awareness Month” (#VAMBAM) by conducting a series of campaigns to bring awareness to society about the different forms of abuse inflicted on men and masculinity by women.
  • Physical abuse-                      pushing, slapping, beating, kicking, punching
  • Verbal abuse-                      name calling, nagging, insulting
  • Emotional and mental abuse-    blackmailing, threatening
  • Financial abuse-              unreasonable monetary demands, spying and controlling spending, demanding complete control over finances


There is compelling data on female violence on men. But instead of addressing the problem, International agencies and government departments and NGOs are suppressing facts, spreading lies and  thereby promoting violence against men.


The following events unravel that there is a systematic, agenda driven, politically motivated campaign to degrade, malign, and destroy everything that is associated with maleness:


  • The Chief Minister of Gujarat referred to boys as ‘Rejected maal’ in a school function in front of children, paving the way for people to view boys as somehow inferior
  • The Delhi CM has started to give monetary rewards to women who abuse, manhandle, beat up men in public, making it an incentive for anyone to abuse men in public
  • The Minister of WCD has given out a public statement that “all violence is male generated”. This can now be seen as a virtual green signal by the government to go ahead and bash up men and boys in public.
  • When asked her opinion about men these days, actress Nandita Das replied  “All men are potential rapists” in a Times of India interview. These kind of irresponsible, hate statements made by film artists and so called activist is nothing but a call to violence against men and boys.
  • By way of financial grants and narratives of ‘positive discrimination’, Educational Institutions are being used to promote feelings of guilt in male children just for the fact of being male.
  • Corporates are being choked to financial death by forcing them to create quasi-legal platforms that victimize male employees
  • Transport systems are being forced to create segregation policies to popularize the thinking that males are dirty, filthy and lechers. Now any man who accidentally steps into a women’s only coach is liable to be beaten up and humiliated publicly and such lynching will be applauded internationally. In a Delhi Metro rail, men were beaten up by women passengers and security women for entering a ladies only coach. These incidents have repeated themselves which show how badly men and boys are being treated in society.


All the above are very carefully constructed efforts to escalate the war against men and boys and to destroy the fabric of gender-harmony.


Recent examples of Violence Against Men & Boys:


  • There is an epidemic of news reports which have shown how men are being killed by wives’ having extra-marital affairs.
  • Young boys are being killed by mothers for financial reasons, extra-marital affairs etc.,
  • Men being tortured and forced to commit suicide
  • Men being blackmailed for money on fake rape allegations
  • Men being burnt alive
  • Acid attacks on men


VAMBAM Agenda:


  • To sensitize society about the rampant Violence against Men and Boys
  • To change the popular mindset that Violence against men and boys is humorous
  • To encourage people that it is also important to help to stop female violence against men and boys
  • To encourage boys and men to break their silence if they have experienced violence even if done by women


VAMBAM October Events:


  1. A Fake Story : JustMean by SIFAR: Published on 29th September 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxGUabZ3po&feature=youtu.be
  2. Satyagraha by SIFK, Bangalore on 2 Oct 2015
  3. Deployment of twitter hashtag #VAMBAM on Saturday 10th, October 2019
  4. Launch a support system for male victims of sexual abuse. http://www.thehindu.com/data/the-many-shades-of-rape-cases-in-delhi/article6261042.ece It has been reported by The Hindu news article that out of 460 cases tried in 2008 in Delhi area, 281 cases were either of consenting couples or eloped couples. So, there are a large number of cases where the men and women were in a sexual relationship and which out of some societal pressure or emotional pressure, the man was made to undergo the humiliation and rigours of being a rape accused. In a good number of cases, the sexual advances are made by adult women, who use blackmail as a weapon to push the boy or man into a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. This is nothing  but sexual exploitation of men where the man is physically, mentally, emotionally and financially exploited to the extreme all for the sake of love for a woman.
  5. Engage the public with radio talk shows on community radio, video podcasts etc.,


Links to all online references:
http://vambamlinks.blogspot.com/2015/10/links.html

International Men’s Day 2015

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Twitter handle: #InternationalMensDay
 
International Men’s Day is a day to commemorate and reflect on the many values, contributions and accomplishments that are attributed to men. Beginning with the discovery of fire and invention of the wheel to the Mars Orbiter Mission, the journey of man has transcended both time and space, but we somehow remain in the same circle of hope, apathy & despair.
Mankind thrives on inspiration which is best symbolized in the spirit of freedom. This is the spirit that overthrows oppression and tyranny, the spirit that invents and innovates, the spirit that nourishes and cares.
International Men’s Day is the day to celebrate all the positive male values that make us human and also makes us uniquely human.
IMD is also an effort to improve gender relations and use benign gender sensitivity to understand and appreciate a long misunderstood gender because of its generally stoic nature
November 19 of each year has been celebrated as the International Men’s Day (IMD). In India, IMD was first celebrated with a car and bike rally in Mumbai in 2007, In Hyderabad it was i2009. Each year IMD celebrations grew in size and we saw IMD being endorsed by the HE range of deodorants in 2014.
Every year, IMD is celebrated with a theme. This year’s theme deals with Male Health issues..
It is well known that the average male life-expectancy is 5 years lower than the female life-expectancy. Men suffer many ailments which are usually attributed to their workaholism. But it is also true that men take on much higher stress and is linked to their non-expression of emotional issues. Research spending on male health is a fraction on what is spent on female health issues.

Posts by medical health professionals:We are expecting medical and psychological health professionals to contribute by posting their short synopses or online links of male health issues to be displayed on this page.
Generally speaking, there is an absence of gender-research organizations or programmes to look into male-related issues. Through this page and this commemorative date, we wish to encourage individuals, groups, corporate entities and male-oriented product brands to promote and conduct events, surveys, discussions on this topic.
Event suggestions: Rallies, Mixers-Blenders, foodie group events, seminars, art-expositions, selfie contests, twitter feeds, talk shows, stand-up comedy shows, Employee/employer appreciations, male-specific brand promotions, group health-checkups, charity work,
Call for sharing their plans for IMD
Download Resources link: 


Post your event pics and experiences: Please post your links either on to this page or send an email of thoughts, pictures, videos to share your experiences’s

‘Combating Online Violence Against Women & Girls: A Worldwide Wake-Up Call’ – A waste of a good coffee



‘Majority of women suffer online abuse says UN Report’; reads the early morning coffee news item. This is enough to make me want to go back to the safety of my sleep. But it is time again to unravel these mysterious statements by the UN.

The report goes on to talk about ‘cyber violence’ and further says that ‘India is one of the countries where reporting about cyber bullying is low’. Again and again we hear of these ‘unreported’ cases somehow being ‘reported’ perhaps telepathically from victim to UN report makers. Or does the UN also employ tarot cards and astrologers’ parrots to pick a number. More on that in a moment.   
Let’s take a break to refill the coffee mug. Things are about to get more interesting.

The report named ‘Combating Online Violence Against Women & Girls: A Worldwide Wake-Up Call’. The quotes go on as such ‘only 35% women in India reported their victimization while a larger majority 46.7% had not. About 18.3% were not even aware that they had been victimized’ Now coming to the interesting part, which poses a few serious questions.

  1. How did they know the exact figure of 46.7% had not reported victimization when it was not reported? Are the UN reporters on some kind of medication that made them hallucinate?
  2. How did the UN know it was just 35% of women who reported abuse when they did not know how many actually faced the abuse? How does the UN know the actual number of women who are online? Is the UN secretly stalking these women? Does the UN realize it is a crime?
  3. How could 18.3% not even be aware that they had been victimized? Is this the online analogy of telling someone that they were sleep walking, or is it just a covert message being sent to women to get in touch with their ‘feelings’ about being abused?
  4. Where is the report on how many men face online abuse?
  5. Where is the report on how many men have ‘not reported’ their online abuse?
  6. Where the report on how many men are not even aware that they have been victimized by these UN reports?

The report goes on (..and on and on) to says that women in the age range of 18 to 24 are ‘uniquely likely’ to experience stalking and sexual harassment in addition to physical threats. The above statement can only be made by an unemployed astrologer desperate for some attention or it could be made by a very respectable body called the UN which has stopped being effective in curtailing real human issues and is now waging war against Men & Boys.

Seems like the UN is no longer a place where real humanitarian work takes place, nor does it stand for equality or justice anymore. This is evident from the end statement of the news report which reiterates the UN mandate as Sensitization, Safeguards and Sanctions- Sensitization of ‘feelings’ so that it can create  Safeguards against imaginary threats and impose Sanctions against about half of the human population. 

Addendum 1: For Your Information, UN please consider the following: https://twitter.com/CHSommers/status/647450208452878336



Addendum 2: 

Fact-checking the UN: Is the Internet dangerous for women?

A Burning in Hyderabad

News reports started off saying that a kerosene-burning of a woman took place in the side lanes of the old city of Hyderabad. The accusation of the 30% burn victim is that she was attacked and burnt by her relatives. The woman is currently hospitalized and undergoing treatment. Police had taken custody of the accused and questioned. 
After investigation, other facts came to light. The relatives claimed that they were not involved in the incident. The burn victim claimed that she was working in Deloitte software company.  She claimed that the attack took place at 10pm in the night. During investigation, the police officials could not get any leads. At this stage a young man came forward to say that he was an eyewitness to the incident. But when the police interrogated him further, he claimed that the woman called him up at 9.30pm and told him that she was burnt and told him to give false witness of the incident.
Even her rescuer confirmed that he did not see anyone who could have set her on fire. On further investigation, police found out that she was not working for Deloitte. She already had 13 cheating cases on her. She even put false cases on many of her relatives and made them run around courts. An elderly relative explains how she put rape case against him, his wife, his deceased daughter and his two sons. When they were acquitted, she filed writ petition against their acquittal in the High Court. It is reported that she even put cases against people who refused to helped her and also against people who helped her! MBT party leader Azadullah Khan says that he himself, his brother, party workers and even a lawyer who helped her with bail were also implicated in fake harassment cases by this woman.
The news report concludes that at present, the police are investigating further into the case, but as of now it seems that the woman has allegedly has set herself on fire to implicate her government-employed relatives and extort money from them.

Marriage in the time of WCD, a Prenuptial Out-law

 


Marriage breakup in India these days takes lesser time than it takes to complete six balls in a cricket match. ‘Over’ says the Umpire in a cricket game; his decision is final, no appeals, no reviews. But in an Indian divorce, the real match begins for players of the game. Prenuptial agreements or contracts as seen in the Western world are supposed to minimize the litigation for the warring couples, and to ensure that no party uses divorce for the express purpose of financial profit. However, in India, it is a different power play altogether.

 
There have been several news reports informing the public that the Women & Child Development (WCD) Ministry is proposing the legitimization of pre-nuptial contracts in India. Sounds just like cricketing rules. Sounds fair and square? After all cricket is supposed to be a gentleman’s game overseen by gentlemen umpires. Some would say that’s patriarchal oppression of the stadium!  But if we allow the dust to settle and allow the playground to become visible once more, we will find that the WCD has no mandate to create rules of the marriage game on its own. Remember, in a past issue the WCD famously responded by saying “Protection of men is also not the mandate of Ministry of WCD”.
 
By definition any heterosexual Marriage involves the union of a man and a woman, then it can be said with reasonable authority that WCD has no mandate for drafting any law involving marriage. In reciprocation, and in all fairness, we the men of India recognize the fact that we do not have any mandate for marriages involving woman and woman. If at all WCD is burdening itself with heterosexual marriage laws, then a partner-body of Men and Child Development (MCD) Ministry must be immediately constituted to allow reason and logic also to be clinically injected into the draft. Provisionally, till the formation of an MCD, Men’s Rights Groups must be allowed to put in their representations to the law making body.
 
The WCD is a Ministry which has time and again shown itself to be anti-male for adults as well as children (witness the anti-male child remarks by the current Minister). If it is the official stated position of the WCD Ministry that “all violence is male generated” then logically speaking WCD should not entertain any sort of contact between men and women. So if Honorable Minister Maneka Gandhi’s views on males as generators of violence is to be taken at face value, then by proposing a prenuptial law then the WCD, by its own admission is directly contributing to the violence.
 
Besides any one-sided prenuptial law, being unrepresented by the side of men, is the same as a dowry demand, which is illegal & prohibited by the Dowry Prohibition Act.
 
Also like in the past, WCD is more suited to propose new laws and amendments for encouraging breakup and post-breakup scenarios like dowry cases, Domestic Violence Act which is applicable only for women and matters involving incentives for divorces for women, as opposed to Domestic Harmony law proposed by men’s rights groups. Therefore it can be said that till now as far as women and men are concerned, in the context of a family, the WCD has been working purely on divisive lines.
 
Marriage is a unifying concept, performed for the purpose of harmonious cohabitation and the growth of man, woman and children. Marriage is not a platform for unleashing male hatred, property division and making children the property of the State. The WCD, therefore having no experience or mandate or any intention of drafting unifying laws is uniquely disqualified from making proposals for the creation of any sort of draft outlines in any context remotely concerning marriage. We therefore summarily oppose any lab experimentation on the institution of marriage by any unscientific body. The WCD is advised to rediscover fire and reinvent the wheel & also clean itself of misandry before it even thinks of reformulating the rules of man-woman relationship of marriage. In case the government and public still think that a law on prenuptials are required, then we suggest that WCD and Mens Rights Organizations sign a prenuptial agreement first to sit together and draft a prenuptial law. Hows that for equality?

Sparks of Hate Speech near the Powder Keg of Misandry


Some of the greatest men in history like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and a long line of men and women who were inspired by these men have preached and practiced NON-VIOLENCE as a practice of life.

Union Minister Maneka Gandhi in a live Q&A session on Facebook India is reported to have said “…all the violence is male generated and goes on to say how school going boys are going to be rewarded for being ‘gender champions’.

Besides being highly misleading, inaccurate and diabolical to say the least, this speech can now be seen by many as a green signal to unleash violence against men and boys.Till now, there used be some fig-leaves of excuses to bash-up men, and now with this statement, no more vague causes will be needed to unleash violence against men and boys.

But somewhere between Adolf Hitler and Maneka Gandhi, the values of non-violence of a man like Mahatma Gandhi, whose name the Minister incidentally carries, have been hopelessly lost. The line between free speech and hate speech has been blurred with the mainstream media being so poetically mute. Is the main stream media maintaining this deafening silence because the speaker is a ruling party MP or is it because the speaker is a woman in-charge of the mighty Women and Child Development Ministry(WCD). Where is the vociferous media call for ‘THE NATION WANTS TO KNOW’?

It does not bode well for society for when a Minister leading the WCD gives out irresponsible hate speeches containing unscientific assumptions. What we have heard or read are just words, but these words betray the hate against men of this nation. Is this the official view of the WCD Ministry? And is this a precursor by the WCD Minister to roll out an official/unofficial anti-men hate campaign against the men and male children of this nation?

Being an elected Member of Parliament, is the Minister allowed to say this about the same men who elected her and her colleagues to power and also whose tax money goes into the maintenance of this Ministry? Were these feelings of male-hate illustrated in the election manifesto of this Minister during the time of election? Or is it just a jobrequirement for anyone heading the WCD Ministry? It is now left to the male voters and also the female voters of her constituency and the nation to conduct retrospection about their decision. It is also left to the political leadership to find out if the opinions and speech are personal in nature or emanate from the WCD Ministry’s official or ‘unofficial’ agenda. I put this question to the citizens who have given ministerial power to this particular minister if these thoughts and words ensure safety of the male children of the nation. Would it be safe not to question the motives of this Ministry, to say the least?

Secondly, why is that there is no mention of how the Ministry would reward girls for being ‘particularly respectful and helpful to boys and deserve to be emulated and rewarded’? Don’t boys also being children, also being the mandate of WCD, deserve respect?

Today, we are sitting on a powder keg of hate against men, whether it is men among Members of Parliament, Police officers, Defense personnel, Judiciary, Bureaucrats, Media or common citizens. There is already a conspiracy of surreptitious allowance of hate crime against men. This kind of crime is in contrast with the way crime happens by individuals/groups commit against each other. This kind of hate crime is now being initiated and continues to happen only because it is allowed by the State to happen by way of its cognizance and non-involvement in correction. Therefore, by being mute, it would be a crime in itself for citizens to keep quiet against these kinds of statements, specially coming from a sitting Union Minister.

It is understandable for the common man to fear backlash from a powerful ministry which has the power of the State and resources at its beck and call. But what reasons do the men in the government, the politicians, the main stream media have? Is this a silence maintained by fear? If this statement of the Minister is not challenged, then I suggest we all wait for the Kristallnacht against men that is about to follow.

My Prison Experience – Hanging on to innocence

It was mid-day and the April sun was sharp against my face. I was the last of the prisoners to enter the courtyard. It was hexagonal with a small room near the centre.  A big man in a prison uniform looked at me and told everyone to pick up a plate. When my turn came, there were no plates left. I was terrified at the thought of asking him. The inmate looked at me like I was a cockroach. Then he uttered a “$@%8#.. andar se pilate le” (“Get a plate from inside”) and pointed to a small dusty room with an open door. I went inside and found a few bent food plates with dust and dried grime on it. I picked up the least dirty one. This one looked like it was greased with tar.
I took the plate and wandered out of the hexagon into where I saw the last man disappear. It opened into a bigger courtyard with lots of trees and barracks building on the right, with a few men sitting outside and looked at me as if I was a foreign tourist. I probably had that look of a lost boy on my face.  I looked around for the least intimidating looking man and approached him with caution. I was not sure if I should talk to him first. He asked me if I had any cigarettes with me. I told him I don’t. He scowled at me as if I had a rabid infection and after a pause, gestured at my plate and told me to clean it near a cemented water tank.
Thus began the longest plate cleaning exercise of my life. In part I was relieved I had something to do. I poured some water on and used some detergent powder that I found next to the tap. It barely even cleaned the caked dust.  I picked up some sand and tried to scrub off the tar. I saw it make some progress. I wondered if they had sandpaper supply in prison. That was the engineer in me thinking. I scrubbed and scrubbed till the skin of my hands showed signs of peeling off. The final result still had some black tar in a thin layer. With sweat pouring down my face, I could see lines of metal after my engineering feat. I prepared myself mentally to eat off the plate if I was going to be here forever.
I looked up to see a thin young man looking at me intently. He looked amused at what I was doing. He said “Bhaijaan, usko pheko. Khane ka wakat, mere pilate le lo, baad me accha wala doondh ke dunga” (“Brother, leave that plate, you may use my plate during meal-time, I will find you a better one later”). Something about his gesture was reassuring, because I felt I was going to be here for a long long time. I kept imagining, no, I was sure that my family stopped trying to get me out on bail, though I did not have much understanding of that concept then.
That evening I was sitting on my own, trying to avoid ‘the hardened criminals’, imagining all sort of sordid things that might happen to me. The same boy set up a carrom board game and asked me to play with him along with two others. The second day of prison was spent like this, listening to their life stories.
The next morning I kept listening to the loudspeaker announcements that listed out names for release on bail granted or visitation ‘Rihae or Mulaqat‘. My name or number did not come up, but my new friend came back from somewhere, called me by name and asked me to report to the Superintendent’s office for release procedure and to hurry. He did not even wait for me to thank him.
I had a lot of time to reflect on that in the years to come. I do not remember his name, lost in the hardened faces I tried to remember during the three days of ‘judicial remand’. I have forgotten the names, I have forgotten the faces, but I will remember the kindness and the concern the inmates showed me those three days, something I didn’t find in all the people who pretend to uphold law, justice and fairness in the days that led up to prison and hence.
Today, I commemorate the Prison Experience Day with my thanks to the inmates, their kindness and humanity that is lost in the ‘fair and just outside world’. Today, I wish the humanity in them with my #SelfieInPrison initiative

Letter to PM of India on proposal to breakup Hindu family system

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
Dt: 28 Nov. 2014
Hyderabad
To
Hon’ble Prime Minister
PMO, South Block, Raisina Hill
NewDelhi 110011
Dear Sir
Sub: OBJECTIONS TO THE PROPOSED
MARRIAGE LAW (AMENDMENT) BILL
Print media has reported that The Marriage Law (Amendment) Bill 2010/13 has been listed for vote in Parliament in the Winter session 2014. For a law that will affect the lives of every citizen, the newly elected government has made no prior notification for discussion nor did it seek opinion from all interested stakeholders/eminent analysts/NGOs within the general public & is showing undue haste to push for a vote.
The existing adversarial system of litigation in marital law has led to the increase in false accusations to malign the other spouse in & to gain the sympathy of the Family & Criminal court system which has a plethora of anti-male laws to assist in the process.
The result is a humongous backlog of matrimonial cases & consequent property/alimony/maintenance proceedings. Under pressure from a buckling judiciary & overflowing jails the previous govt. decided to simplify the process & correct this disastrous social experiment. The solution proposed via the subject BILL are a few Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage(IrBM) clauses to enable divorce petitioners to make a clean break without too much of emotional and legal hassle.
However, the clauses namely 13D to13F which are highly volatile & discriminatory in nature and have the potential to seriously undermine the fabric of Indian society.
These clauses give invitation & incentive to Indian women (particularly Hindu women) to intentionally breakup their marriages in order to gain financially. In an age where gender equality is also equated with financial freedom, these clauses will prove to be highly destructive tools on a mass scale. There is also a high scope for collusion between husband & wife to instigate fake divorce cases in order to separate ancestral properties. There may be other unforeseen negative effects in terms of property related crime, once these clauses become operational law. People will lose faith in the rule of law and shall take matters into their own hands. Majority citizens of progressive India have predominantly middle-class values. It can be accurately surmised that effects of such a law once promulgated, it will irreversibly change the psyche of the entire nation. Also please note that when rewarding/inducing marital union with dowry is a crime, it is also a crime to reward/induce marital breakup with property/financial gains.
Being a citizen of this country it is my responsibility to advise caution to the policy makers of the nation not to hastily implement this law. I request you to initiate wide-ranging talks with representatives of gender rights on both sides, child rights, social, healthcare & industrial representatives before proposing this Bill to be passed in Parliament. I also request you to remove the said clauses 13D to 13F before introduction in the Parliament.
Yours Sincerely